The corporation isn't some money-sucking black box. It's dispute resolution, software development to match rides efficiently (Uber Pool is tricky), and advertising.
Yes, it also skims money off the top to pay for things like driverless car R&D, but is a small, likely disorganized co-op going to be efficient enough at all the above to take advantage of that margin?
That said, the reality is irrelevant here. Jacobin is the kind of magazine where economic reality is treated as a suggestion, to be discarded as is convenient.
Could things work differently? Absolutely. Are they going to work differently because some hack gets off fantasizing about how in abstract theory, the services Uber performs could be better performed by a co-op that pays workers more? No.
All the co-ops I've encountered or dealt with fall into one of three categories:
* Non-functional, incapable of making decisions or delivering value.
* Functional but completely unscalable. May depend on bizarro local economic conditions or be in one of the few cities where people are willing to pay 30% extra for pizza because it's a co-op.
* Function, scalable, and does not operate much like a co-op at the level of service delivery. REI falls into this category.
Uber works because it's functional, scalable, and reliable. You can go to almost any major city in the US, boot up your Uber app, and reasonably expect to get decent service. It is, abstractly, possible for a co-op to do that. You and Jacobin are completely, totally, 100% correct on this point. Things could be different and better for the people who Jacobin has decided matter.
In fact, we all live in a framework where such a thing is possible! If only someone was brave enough to put their labor where their mouth is. Maybe the propagandists at Jacobin could... nah. They wouldn't go for that. They much prefer theory.
No true scot? The definition of a co-op is a group organized to meet economic or social desires through jointly owned business. What does this have to do with any particular approach to service delivery? You appear to be defining cooperatives as some unworkable theoretical concept and then any actual successful example of implementation is an exception. Convenient!
Vanguard also falls into this category but is absolutely a cooperative.
If it's structured like a co-op and exhibits none of the benefits of a co-op, what's been gained? I'm saying that co-ops generally have to sacrifice at least one of: structure, functionality, scalability.
At least you've cut out Wall Street and co.
So yes, REI does deliver the benefits of a co-op to its owners - high-quality goods at a lower price than they would be unable otherwise be able to get. This is the entire point of a consumer co-op. Workers can also be member-owners of the co-op, and frequently are, but the benefits are geared towards getting better discounts on the goods REI sells. This is in addition to the implicit benefits of being an owner of the company and having a say in its direction.
and a few others.
http://www.udfinc.com/about-udf
The founder and family made Forbes' billionaire list.
The issue is though how does one get drivers to switch from a reliable (though possibly imperfect, inefficient) source of regular income with a well-known brand to an upstart at a large enough scale to pose a direct threat to Uber, thereby forcing them to change their model or go out of business?
I'm living in LA right now and I typically wait 4 min for a car (longest has been 10 min). My last ride cost $4.44. That's less than a Big Mac! ($5.04 average price in the US). I can't imagine a new service being able to beat that from it's inception.
The other issue is that if drivers are allowed drive for Uber and Swift there could be a free rider dynamic: drivers get the benefit of belonging to Swifts' co-op but still get to be part of Uber's network. Sure Uber's service would suffer, but it would be a huge drain on Swift's resources and undercut their model (and reason of existing) from the driver's perspective.
Incrementally, starting to use the second for a small percent and then gradually more
It seems like a few lines later, it says:
By turning to co-op apps, drivers can retain the flexibility of working under a model like Uber’s while also having a say in their own wages and conditions.
If the workers have a "say" in their own wages that means increasing prices, unconditionally. And who is going to provide the assurances that drivers won't lose money if they drop prices. When Uber drops prices, they guarantee wages as per:
https://newsroom.uber.com/beating-the-winter-slump-price-cut...
How will this happen in a co-op? Spoiler alert: it won't.
How?
What is the "bloat" of Uber that this taxi co-op would avoid. Uber's primary spending is on marketing and developer salaries. Without marketing, how do you expect anyone to use the co-op app?
Ultimately, I think it comes down to drivers (and leftists) not valuing developers. You're not going to build and maintain an app which competes with Uber if you're not paying for the "bloat" of developers.
Those are the two ingredients of capitalism: competition and the profit motive. Once you take away one of them, things start breaking down. And that's why not-for-profits are notorious for being wastefully run and being taken advantage of by their senior management.